Latest Contact Center Best Practices

As the technology used to power contact centers has become more advanced, organizations around the globe are beginning to form a less rigid definition of “center”, enabling a large percentage of their agents to work remotely, or “work from home”. They are also increasingly relying on multiple sites for their customer engagement initiatives. In fact, just a short twelve months back, 53% of respondents managed customer engagements through one or zero contact center, a number that has since fallen to 51%, and is predicted to shrink to 39% in twelve months. Interestingly enough, the number of contact centers with more than five locations is steadily decreasing—while 16% had more than five locations twelve months ago, only 14% do I the present, and only 13% will in twelve months. The sweet spot appears to be in the 2-5 range.

By 2020, the customer is expected to manage 85% of their relationships with a business without interacting with a human—something that should come as no surprise when considering the rising popularity of self-service channels across the web, mobile apps, and voice (IVR). As a matter of fact, Forrester recently conducted a survey, which revealed that web self-service (through online knowledge bases) is now the most commonly used communication channel for customer service, the first and only channel to exceed voice in history. And as mobile device adoption continues to expand and consumers increasingly demand fast and effortless engagement with the businesses serving them, many have been left wondering—will alternative touch points soon cause the call center agent to become non-existent?